Winning - Jack Welch [62]
Let’s look at the motors business as an example. It’s about as commoditized as you’ll ever find. Several good companies make the product, and all have good service, quality, and cost.
The right people for this business are hard driving, meticulous, and detail oriented. They are not dreamers, they’re hand-to-hand combat fighters.
Lloyd Trotter is the perfect example. Lloyd joined GE in 1970 as a field service engineer in its high-intensity quartz lighting department, and for thirty years after that, his career was factories, factories, and more factories. He was a foreman, a production manager, and plant supervisor in Lighting, Appliances, and virtually every electrical distribution and control (ED&C) business we had. By the time Lloyd was made CEO of ED&C in 1992, he could tell you from the parking lot whether or not a factory was humming. Two steps closer and he could tell you what it could do better.
Of course, Lloyd liked thinking about strategy, but he liked implementing it more. He was in his element with people who sweated the nitty-gritty details like he did, talking about ways to squeeze efficiencies out of every process. He was a master of discipline. And that’s what made him exactly the right kind of leader to drive our commodities businesses.*
At the other end of the spectrum, it’s generally a different kind of person who thrives. Not better or worse, just different.
Take jet engines. Each engine is a unique, high-tech engineering miracle that requires about a billion dollars of investment to develop. The product life cycle is measured in years. And the customers are tough—the airlines themselves, perennially strapped for money, and the powerful airframers, Boeing and Airbus.
For many years, the jet engine business had its own distinct culture of romance. The people who gravitated toward it weren’t your usual business types—they were in love with the very idea of flying and the wonder of airplanes.
Brian Rowe was perfect for such an environment.
Brian started his career as an apprentice with DeHavilland Engines in England before joining GE as a factory-floor engineer in 1957. After stints in virtually every possible jet engine design project, he was named head of GE’s aircraft engine business in 1979.
Brian was a huge, gregarious guy—outspoken, opinionated, and visionary. He loved airplanes so much he would have worn goggles and a scarf to work if he could have.
Unlike Lloyd, Brian pretty much hated the nuts and bolts of management, and discussions of operating margins and cash flow bored him. But he sure did have the guts and the vision to place the big bets, laying a billion dollars on a single investment that would take years to pay off. Likewise, Brian’s personality made him a great salesman with customers, who shared his enthusiasm for every new technological advance.
Lloyd and Brian were both a case of perfect fit—right for their jobs, right for the business situation, right for the strategy. You won’t always get that lucky, and strategy can get implemented without an ideal match.
But you’re much better off with one.
BEST PRACTICES AND BEYOND
I’ve heard it said that best practices aren’t a sustainable competitive advantage because they are so easy to copy. That’s nonsense.
It is true that, once a best practice is out there, everybody can imitate it, but companies that win do two things: they imitate and improve.
Admittedly, imitating is hard enough. I remember a software company executive at one Q & A session lamenting, “My people don’t copy very well. They just don’t want to—they like the way they do it.” This reluctance to imitate is a common phenomenon. Maybe it’s just human nature.
But to make your strategy succeed, you need to fix that mindset—and go a lot further.
In fact, the third step of strategy is all about finding best practices,